Pixalate Releases List of Mobile Apps With the Highest Invalid Traffic (IVT, Including Ad Fraud) in February 2024 Across Google, Apple App Stores: Spider Solitaire, Draft Max Among Most Impacted

LONDON, March 14, 2024 -- Pixalate, the market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and Mobile Advertising, today released the February 2024 Mobile Apps IVT Report for the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. The series reveals which mobile apps appear to be most impacted by invalid traffic (IVT), including ad fraud, as measured by Pixalate.

In February 2024, Pixalate analyzed over five million downloadable apps across the Apple App Store and Google Play Store and over 39 billion global open programmatic advertising impressions.

The reports highlight the five most common types of IVT that Pixalate observed across both mobile app platforms during the study period, which are as follows:

• Display Impression Fraud (Sophisticated Outlier Activity*): Involves impressions generated from the same browser or device at a statistically significant inflated rate.
• Video Impression Fraud (Sophisticated Outlier Activity*): Video ad impressions that are generated from the same browser or device at a statistically significant inflated rate.
• Masked IP (Manipulation/Falsification of Location Related Attributes*): Involves video ad impressions generated from the same browser or device at a statistically significant inflated rate.
• Proxy (Invalid Proxy Traffic*): The impression is from an intermediary proxy device that manipulates traffic counts, passes non­human or invalid traffic, or fails to comply with the protocol.
• High-Risk Device ID (Known Dangerous or Fraudulent SIVT Sources*): The impression is from a device ID flagged for a high risk of invalid traffic.

*( ) denotes IVT detection method per Media Rating Council (MRC) Invalid Traffic Guidelines.

Pixalate excluded spoofing from this report, as spoofing requires different tactics to prevent it (e.g., blocking an app highly impacted by spoofing could lead to blocking apps with real traffic attractive to buyers). See our Mobile App Spoofing series for a list of apps most affected by the spoofing IVT type.

Learn more about Pixalate’s reported IVT types in our Knowledge Base.

Top Mobile Apps Impacted by IVT - February 2024

Download the full list of top 20 mobile apps impacted by IVT in February 2024:

About Pixalate

Pixalate is the market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and Mobile Advertising. We work 24/7 to guard your reputation and grow your media value. Pixalate offers the only system of coordinated solutions across display, app, video, and CTV for better detection and elimination of ad fraud. Pixalate is an MRC-accredited service for the detection and filtration of sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) across desktop and mobile web, mobile in-app, and CTV advertising. 

Disclaimer

The content of this press release, and the Apps With the Highest IVT Reports (the "Report"), reflect Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes can be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate’s opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees. Pixalate is sharing this data not to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but, instead, to report findings and trends pertaining to programmatic advertising activity in the time period studied.